War Party Stumbles The great danger of this propaganda technique, with its crudeness and apparent disregard for objective standards of truth, is that it is bound to provoke widespread incredulity. In dialectical revenge against the swaggering excesses of the War Party, the backlash, or "blowback," is already gathering, and, while anti-war protestors marched in their millions in Rome, Paris, Barcelona, and London, the strongest reaction may eventually flare up on American shores.

Add political and cultural turmoil to the toll taken by this war in terms of troops and treasure. The anti-war movement is, in large part, a youth movement. Brought up to believe that America is a democratic republic, today's young Americans see their country becoming an empire abroad and a police state at home. As the land of the free and the home of the brave becomes the land of the Patriot Act and the home of the too-scared-to-protest, the young are standing up to be counted. There is a premonition of insurrection in the air, not only political but also cultural, that could make the 1960s – with all its excesses – seem like a Sunday school picnic.